Like hers.
Suddenly Felipa sees her, as if emerging from the night. The car moves too fast along Ferran Agulló Street and brakes sharply in front of the house. Felipa leans out a little, just enough to see her, running, tossing her black hair. The figure of a young man exits from the other door. He takes her under the streetlight and they kiss in a singular fashion, as if eating each other up.
Then he does something else.
He sticks his hand under her skirt, up the back, then the front.
The girl opens her legs, offering herself, squeezing against him.
One minute, two, five, until they separate and she enters the building.
Felipa miscalculates the time. She should have gone back to her room right away. But she’s still hanging around closing the window. Vanesa is already inside the enormous 400-square-meter duplex apartment. An apartment you can lose yourself in.
“Good evening, Miss Vanesa.”
“Oh God, you scared me! What are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t sleep. Shall I fix you something?”
“What would you fix me at this hour of the night?” She takes a quick glance at her watch. “And you...” She struggles for the right words. “Are you spying on me?”
“Me?”
“Shit, Felipa. If you tell Mother, I swear I’ll make your life a living hell!”
Felipa’s about to tell her that she couldn’t make it any worse, but ends up not saying anything. It can always get worse. There’s always a way. The laundry that’s not washed on time, and the blouse that, although she has ten others, is precisely the one she needs to wear that afternoon; hot meals, cold meals; searching pockets before the wash and sometimes finding incriminating things such as condoms... She has lied for Vanesa so many times, to protect her, but ultimately also to protect herself.
“I have never told your mother a thing, miss.”
“Of course...” Vanesa crosses her arms.
“What?”
“You people were already doing it when you were like eleven or twelve, right?”
“Doing it?”
“C’mon or I’ll smack you. Doing it like rabbits.”
Felipa thinks she knows what Vanesa’s talking about but doesn’t want to get into it. After all, she’d found the girl one day with a boy, in her own bedroom, when she was barely fifteen. Her parents weren’t home, like always, and though it was her free afternoon, she’d come back early because she wasn’t feeling well, didn’t have any money to spare, and knew all too well she had nowhere to go.
“If there is nothing you want, I’m going to bed,” and she tries to leave.
“May I ask you a question?”
From the look of contempt on the face of this know-it-all, Felipa is sure the question won’t be to her liking. “Of course.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Working, miss. Working.”
“You’re revolting.” Her face stresses the disgust. “You come to Spain penniless and take care of other people’s children because you can’t feed your own. Why do you have them then?”
“Children are a gift from God.”
Vanesa bursts out laughing. “Go on with that nonsense.” She almost spits the words out. “Mother told me that your first husband left you and that you didn’t even have time to hug the second one before he knocked you up.”
“My Manuel died, miss.”
“Who takes care of your children?”
“My mother.”
“How long has it been since you’ve seen them?”
It’s hard for her to speak the words. Sometimes it’s too much, much more overwhelming than usual.
“Almost three years, miss.”
Vanesa Morales Masdeu holds her gaze.
Then Felipa looks down, unable to resist. “Good night.” She starts to leave.
The girl says nothing.
A few steps.
“Don’t go making noise in front of my room tomorrow. Clean somewhere else, okay?” she hisses suddenly.
Felipa nods and walks on. When she gets to her room, she knows exactly how difficult it’s going to be to fall asleep.
Laia Masdeu Porta is forty-seven years old and a slave driver.
A natural blonde with two liposuctions and three facelifts, she’s a Botox addict, does four or five hours a day in the gym, a sauna, massage, and intensive care; always corporal, never intellectual; almond-eyed, generously siliconed lips, an adolescent’s body, large breasts, well-manicured hands, and expensive clothes. She rarely smiles so as not to provoke unnecessary wrinkles. She never voices strong opinions because she doesn’t have any. Her hourglass is perfect.
As solid as her amorality.
The first thing she does when she crosses Turó Parc on her way home from the gym is to look up to see her wide balcony. It’s not the first time she’s surprised to find Felipa up there, doing nothing. But, of course, it’ll be the last if she catches her again. The most amazing thing is that she always says she’s cleaning the windows or sweeping. For God’s sake, they’re all alike. A herd of beggars. Although Felipa has been with her for a long time. Years now. But it doesn’t mean she’s the least bit fond of her...
They’re nothing more than third world animals living like rats in a society that’s beyond them.
Laia Masdeu Porta goes up the elevator by herself and enters her apartment without making a sound. She takes off her jacket, looks at herself in the mirror, the front and sides, all mechanical gestures, and then walks away with the same circumspection.
Her maid is in the bathroom, on her knees, scrubbing the toilet.
Laia relaxes, although not too much.
First, the kitchen. She opens the fridge. She keeps tabs on the food, because recently she’s discovered that sometimes there’s a missing steak, or yogurt, or custard. She hates to be robbed. But all those wretches steal. They can’t help themselves. That’s the way they’ve been brought up. Deep inside, she knows she should feel sorry for them.
But she doesn’t.
They know well enough to send their money back to their countries.
And then they complain. They complain! The day before, she’d had a talk with her and made things clear.
“Look, Felipa, if you’re not happy, there’s the door, understood? I just have to tap my foot and fifty more like you come rushing out. But not even like you! Cheaper! We’ve done quite a bit for you. What more do you want?”
She goes to the dining room. The mail is waiting on a large cut-glass platter on top of a little table, next to the door, so everyone can pick up their own. She glances at the letters from the bank but doesn’t open them. José María will take care of them. She grabs hers, all junk mail. But she does take a look at the phone bill. She rips open the envelope and studies the calls.
None to the Philippines.
She sighs.
It’s not about the charges for two or three euros that she finds on the bill. It’s the actual fact, the detail. Aren’t there telephone centers for immigrants? Let them talk from there! What if there’s a truly important call for her while Felipa is chattering or whimpering with her children or her mother?